NBC was so freaked out when Conan O'Brien lost the older "Tonight Show" demographic that, in 2010, it made a 180-degree bootleg turn and restored Jay Leno to the throne. Now the chickens have come to roost for both Leno and NBC, and Fallon is the usurper.

The Hollywood Reporter broke the rumor this month that Leno will have one more year on the show before Fallon takes over. The New York Times confirmed it in a front-page story last week.

The New York Daily News reported that there is even a tax credit in the state's budget subsidizing a talk or variety show that seems designed to help NBC bring the "Tonight Show" franchise back to New York City. "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" is already produced there.

Fallon's producer, Lorne Michaels, knows a thing or two about late night. He created "Saturday Night Live," now in its 38th season, and its ratings outstrip many of fifth-ranked NBC's weeknight prime-time shows.

I'm not sure how Leno became devalued as a comic or a person.

ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel recently said Leno had no actual feelings. That charge was first nailed to Leno in Bill Carter's book "The Late Shift," about the battle for Johnny Carson's chair 21 years ago. It showed Leno, now 62, as ambitious to a fault. Many felt David Letterman, who is now 65, earned the job by serving in the post-"Tonight Show" time slot for 11 years, but substitute host Leno leapfrogged past him.

I was at the Los Angeles news conference when NBC announced that the job had gone to Leno, who did a victory lap on a Harley. I shouted a question: Did he feel used in the negotiations? His response: They're paying me all this money. Who's using whom?

Leno has been late-night ratings leader ever since, even in the young demographic everyone covets and which Fallon, 38, and Kimmel, 45, will compete for when the transition is complete.

Carson had the last word on all this when he appeared on Letterman's show, which moved to CBS in 1993, to pass the torch. If Johnny was America, then America hated Leno.

Leno has the oldest audience in late night - 58 years of age. But Fallon's audience is just five years younger, and his total audience has slipped by 1 million as younger viewers shop around. A wounded Leno, meanwhile, is taking potshots - in biting-the-hand-that-feeds you fashion - at NBC in his monologues. He called their executives the snakes St. Patrick drove out of Ireland.

I don't watch Leno, but the tide turned against him so swiftly I almost feel sorry for him.

I fast-forward through Fallon's nightly monologue to get to his "SNL"-type skits and the musical performances.

His parody of Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair," with Fallon as Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen as a younger version of himself, is typical of the generational mashups that make him accessible to viewers of all ages.

Earlier this month, Fallon and Justin Timberlake imitated Michael McDonald singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," with McDonald joining in. Timberlake's weeklong stint to promote his new album on Fallon was epic. Their chemistry reminded me of the groove Carson had when his buddies were on.

Fallon's weak spot is his interviews. They are so often with people he knows or admires that they cross a line from personal to cloying.

But there is a distinctive comic edge to all he does.

And just imagine: When Fallon inherits Johnny's chair, The Roots will be the "Tonight Show" band!

Arbitron runs a subscription service and hates it when newspapers report the results of the radio station ratings survey they want people to pay for. There's nothing they can do to me, but they can make life miserable for whoever slipped them to me.

So I defer to their tyranny. Listing the station rankings, however, and whether they are up or down, is apparently fair use.